


Black

by wheatleyandrews



Series: Greendreams [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Death, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, Lust, M/M, Romantic Angst, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-16 18:15:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheatleyandrews/pseuds/wheatleyandrews
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bran had made this weeklong journey to Greywater Watch many times before, but the final stretch on the cold, grey stone always unnerved the Northmen. Yet at the head of the royal procession beside him the crannogmen never flinched. "This is their home," he constantly reminded himself.</p><p>Bran heard Meera's breath hitch as the end of the causeway crept through the mist into sight. The towers of Greywater Watch poked through the horizon, and the soft, shifting blue of the ocean melted through the haze behind them. With every step closer, the reality crept in on them. Jojen, as always, kept his blank gaze locked forward, emotionless, as if to whisper 'I told you so' deep in his sister's ear.<br/>----<br/>Jojen's eyes flitted to Bran's in a fleeting moment, and the iron lizard-lion snarled from atop the crown. The calmest look flooded Bran and reassured him. "This is my destiny."<br/>----<br/>"Promise me you'll be forever faithful," Jojen whispered. It was no question. Bran's hot breath poured over him. "Promise me, Bran." There were no secrets between them now, no walls to keep their love apart. "Can you do that for me?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pride

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a prequel to 'Blue', about one year before, set sometime after 'Vigilance'. It tells the story of Jojen's confirmation as Lord of Greywater Watch, which I mentioned in 'Blue' in kind of a throwaway sort of fashion. But thanks to one of my loyal fans, I started to get an idea for a really concrete story. I hope you enjoy!

The grand stone causeway seemed to roll on forever before them through the murky green swamp, beneath the ruffled grey coat of clouds that sprinkled them with the soft flurries of early spring. A thick, silvery mist veiled the mire and clung to its surface, where every so often a tiny ripple slowly faded into a wide circle on the water, a fish come to feed from some loose, rotting debris. Just as often, the water roiled in a burst of white foam that sent much wider circles speeding across the marsh, and the black, scaly body of the now-satiated lizard-lion slowly slithered away to continue its hunt. There were no crannogs balanced tenaciously over the water here; the reeds only concealed pain and horrible, slow death. Those splashes always sent the King in the North reeling, three times nearly falling from his horse to smash gracelessly on the ancient, worn stone below their mares' footfall. Even Rickon, the brave Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, couldn't help but snag his sword in hand and make a hastened tug. _What terrible crime_ , he wondered, _did the men who built these bridges have to commit to slave away here?_

Bran had made this weeklong journey to Greywater Watch many times before, but the final stretch on the cold, grey stone always unnerved the Northmen. Yet at the head of the royal procession beside him the crannogmen never flinched. _This is their home_ , he constantly reminded himself, glancing to Jojen and Meera's concrete, unending stares. _Their lands, their elements. They're used to this, they grew up with it._

They might even had laughed at him, as they'd done too many times before. After all, they ruthlessly teased, how could their king rule this land in which he feels so foreign? Bran sighed softly. In another time, he wouldn't be garbed all in black, nor would his wife, Hand, kingsguard, and all his entourage. The bannermen wouldn't carry the dark, black banners of mourning, adorned with their wolf weeping blood. 

Bran heard Meera's breath hitch as the end of the causeway crept through the mist into sight. The towers of Greywater Watch poked through the horizon, and the soft, shifting blue of the ocean melted through the haze behind them. With every step closer, the reality crept in on them. Jojen, as always, kept his blank gaze locked forward, emotionless, as if to whisper _I told you so_ deep in his sister's ear. 

Bran's legs were numb and saddlesore; though the gods had granted him control and feeling in his legs, the grinding ride was more than enough to burn their gift away. His thoughts drifted to a week past, standing in the archway of the great hall, the small council seated with many a huff and grumble, waiting for their king's bidding so they could continue with their small business. Most were apt to leave when he bid them go, and those that weren't were quickly shooed away by Rickon. Meera and Jojen sat quietly in their seats, eyes fixed to their king, a dark veil of dread washing over them when his mood didn't lighten to see the terse, whining old men leave. He alighted between them, on the throne, and nodded to Rickon in the archway, who latched the door shut and was on his way for patrol. He pulled a small scroll, grey-green seal unbroken, on the table before him. With four soft words he saw his wife's eyes brim with tears. "There was a rider." The lizard-lion of House Reed snarled from the seal wax. All three knew before Bran dared pull the scroll open, and the soft sound of the wax splitting in half sent Meera's tears rolling down her face.

Every maester's account differed; a chill, an overindulgence in spirits, a markless poison in his food. Lord Howland Reed looked from tip to toe a healthy man as he was lowered into the pyre, they said. They could never bury bodies in the swamps of the Neck, lest they become prey to the lizard-lions. He passed peacefully in his sleep, a well-deserved rest for a man whose loyalty remained true in the decade he spent rebuffing the southron invaders. 

As they greeted the grey stone of the castle gates and the porticullis rose with a rattling clamor, the procession retained the strictest of silence. Here the lizard-lion of House Reed, cried a river of blood over their green banners as well. With quiet _thumps_ they dismounted their mares and followed the bidding of the castle maester.

Jojen's stare extended over the marsh reeds once more as his father's ashes were flung into the wind among the scant snowflakes to pepper the swamp surface. There on the shore, just under the tallest tower of the castle, Meera fell to her knees and wept silently as flake by flake her beloved father took the same journey as every Reed, to sink under the ripples of the marshes they guarded with net and spear and trident.

It all seemed so foreign to Bran, but he supposed that lying alongside one's ancestors on the swamp floor was not far off from lying alongside them in an icy, dark crypt. He tried to find tears to cry for this man who'd championed him against the southroners as tirelessly as Summer once clung to his side, but they could not flow. Beside him his wife sank close to the dark, dank earth as her sobs began to shrink, her soft black curls gleaming in the little sunlight that sifted through the blanket of grey clouds above. He knelt to comfort her, placing a tender, tentative hand on the shoulder of her black, silk dress to ease his fall. Bran could feel dozens of eyes on him, but he whispered softly in his sweet wife's ear. "I'm here."

Above them Jojen stood, green-eyed stare never broken, watching each flake drop forever beneath the ripples.

* * *

The blue funk never left Bran, even in the great feasting hall of the castle proper. The hall was tighter, closer, and never meant to hold a great army of thousands bannermen like Winterfell's was. The vaulted ceiling sloped far sooner than home did, and the throne where Jojen sat was fashioned from black driftwood dragged from the depth of the swamp, unrotten and preserved in the mud. Its twists and crags and knobs reminded him of his own white throne. Had none of the castle's men bowed at his pass, it would almost seem he were a mere ambassador, an observer passing through with business, only happening to reach the castle on the day of the new lord's confirmation, never the king and lord of all under his watchful gaze. The banners of the Neck were called to witness and swear fealty to the new lord, but they feasted with tense, quiet reserve and stopped at once when the maester approached, clutching a silvery, flowing pillow.

He pressed the wrought iron crown into Jojen's hair, and the emerald inlay sprayed green shimmers in the torchlight. Jojen's eyes flitted to Bran's in a fleeting moment, and the iron lizard-lion snarled from atop the crown. One would expect a nervous tremble from the strawhaired Hand, but only the calmest look flooded Bran and reassured him. _This is my destiny._

 Acrid incense burned around them, smelling of salt and sea and smoke, and the maester asked Jojen in a deep, crackling bass: "Do you pledge your life to your people?"

"I do," the blonde lord nodded.

"Do you swear your hearth and heart and harvest to them, so they might always be welcome at your gates?"

"I do."

"Do you swear to guard them with arrow, spear and sword?"

"Every one, I do." Jojen scanned the crowd of bannermen and many of the lesser lords bowed their heads at his gaze. Bran remembered his own coronation, when even that simple reaction he found hard to elicit, but with Stannis Baratheon among his attendants that hardly seemed inexplicable. Every Northman of a noble upbringing is taught in his childhood of how the Neck was once its own free kingdom, that the Starks could only seduce into rule once King Rickard slew the last Marsh King Serman and took his princess daughter Rella as his bride. The Neck always maintained its thin slice of independence, which it guarded with as much ferocity as the southron border.

"Do you swear it by earth and water?"

"And by bronze and iron," Jojen said. At last, Bran felt a crack radiate from his solid, stony pallor. The words he'd been trained to say since he first could speak were finally rushing from his lips, and the feeling of shock rolled through him. In a few scant seconds, it would all finally become true.

"Do you swear it by ice and fire?"

"I swear it by ice and fire, that I shall grant mercy to the weak, help to the helpless, justice to all and shall never fail my people." 

The maester bowed deeply and called out, "All hail Lord Jojen of House Reed, first of his name, Lord of the Greywater, Protector of the Neck, Warrior of the Crannogmen and Master of the Marsh!" Jojen swallowed meekly and rose from his seat, emerald crown flitting patches of graceful green light over his sworn swords as his black cloak slid over the glazed stone floor.

The chant rose from the crowd of hundreds as he lifted his arms. " _Earth and water! Bronze and iron! Ice and fire! Earth and water! Bronze and iron! Ice and fire!_ "

The pulse fell and died as Jojen lowered his hands. "In the light of our King Brandon, and my sweet sister the Queen Meera," he motioned to them in their simple, wooden chairs on either side of innate, imposing throne, "I shall set out on the morrow to swear my fealty at Winterfell and resume my duties as Hand of the King." The lords nodded in respect and solemn understanding, and many dipped their heads to Bran as though it was the first time they'd set eyes on Brandon the Seer, or whatever fantastical title they graced him with now. "I will govern my people from afar, and so I appoint in my stead my cousin Terran, the Lord Castellan, as Lord Protector, to take care of the daily business of the domain while I serve our righteous king..."

The clamor of the hall drifted away from Bran as he noticed the level of Meera's glass slowly drop lower and lower, emptied not with cautious sips but with hectic, sudden gulps. A servant always appeared from the side with a fresh wineskin to satiate her deep thirst. Bran felt a twisting twinge that shot through him from his stomach out to his fingernails, a deep guilt at never finding the tears to deign to weep with her.

Court adjourned as the banners were dismissed, and the Lord of Greywater Watch simply extended a hand to the King of Winter and tugged him from his grasp into a warm embrace. Bran felt Meera's piercing emerald eyes dancing hurriedly over them from behind her swamp of black curls, but breathed Jojen's scent in from his black, silken mourning gowns. Jojen just stood solid as the stones of the causeway, grasping his royal lover close to him, never crying, only clutching him, desperate to feel life inside his lover, to never let him slip beneath the soft grey-green ripples of the marsh.

And with a final gulp of sweet red wine and a huffing set of footsteps behind them, the Queen found her bedchamber, grace dulled by the hard stone of spirits.


	2. Faith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I switch between the POVs of Bran and Jojen to tell this chapter. I've stuck with Bran's POV almost exclusively for this entire series, so maybe it'll be refreshing for some Jojen POV. Just trying out this format to see if it works!
> 
> If you thought some of these one-shots were dark and angsty before... well, be prepared. Warning: there's some (barely) underage sex and then dubcon later in this chapter.
> 
> Super major awesome props to ttawny for her amazing beta magic! <3

* * *

Bran

* * *

The cold grip of night held the tallest tower of Greywater Watch close. Hundreds of generations before, here slept the Marsh Kings and their queens, serenaded by the songs of water: the ceaseless, pounding crash of the sea from the Bite to the east, the hurried, sudden splashes of the grey-green mires of the Neck from the west, and the soft tinkle of the sleet and snow of late winter from high above. Now, though, a wolf swam among the silky swamp of the bed, desperate for the company of his lizard-lion. 

His grace, King Bran the Seer, saw nothing in the milky pitch-black as Greywater sung him to sleep. In a day past he might have changed into Summer's skin while the stars hung over the castle, but the harshest chills of winter had seen those days off forever. The night's grasp was sweaty, cool air pooling through the tiniest fractures in Greywater's ancient walls, and unconsciously Bran shivered between the soft, green silks. The castle slept with him, dark save for the tiniest pinpricks of torchlight scattered among the winter town far below. 

 _Jojen..._  Bran stretched a hand to caress the hard, smooth curve of his lover's cheek where it met his lean neck, as sweat glistened in his sandy brow.  _Oh, Jojen..._ Bran whispered heavily as the pleasure rocked through him, Jojen's own hand tangling among his lover's long brown locks. Jojen rocked slowly inside of him as the sun fell from the sky, the soft kisses of sunlight losing their heat as the young lovers' only grew warmer. Everything there on the beach, somewhere along the Stony Shore, was too fast, too cold, too slow, too hot... and yet... Bran had risen that morning, as every one for the past year, as the king in exile, not even yet with an army at his back. The unyielding white throne his ancestors had dispensed their royal, holy wisdom from was still warmed by a usurper. But on this day, his fifteenth name day, Bran's Hand and closest counselor gave him what small pleasure the two could share, away from the camp and Meera's piercing, wry eyes. There on the mossy beach that held fast against the urging rolls of the incoming tide, he made love to Bran in earnest for the very first time. 

Every scent, the sour tinge of old sweat, stale, unwashed hair, the waft of salt from the ocean, bloomed like the freshest flowers of spring in Bran's dream. Jojen shuddered against him; the cold of winter seeped through their leathers and furs and danced menacingly across what little skin they bore to the icy winds of dusk, but Bran's warmth drove Jojen deeper and closer, and the soft kisses that burst apart with sharp cries of pleasure were warm as the sun of their youth. Jojen's fox eyes were squinted with the strength of piercing, fundamental pleasure as he sped quicker and defter deep into his young, virgin love, and every caress the young king held along Jojen's writhe body was like liquor to poppy, fortifying the bliss that raced through them, hushed, confused and madly loving. All too soon, it was done. Jojen had never known man, just as Bran never had, but the sight kept him rapt with greendreams for their first, mesmerizing, though imperfect, time of passion. He collapsed against the young king in a storm of lips and tongues as ecstasy flooded the strawhaired lord, and marked the boy as his with his mouth and his seed.

 _Promise me you'll be forever faithful,_ Jojen whispered, as he wrapped a cold, lean hand against Bran's cock to stroke him to his finish. It was no question. Jojen sucked longingly at his lover's swollen lips as Bran's hot breath poured over him.  _Promise me, Bran._  Jojen pulled back as his hand's tempo sped faster, and he stared deep into Bran's eyes, glazed with love and pleasure. There were no secrets between them now, no walls to keep their love apart.  _Can you do that for me?_  

Bran's teeth clenched his lower lip tight as he muffled a long, deep moan. Jojen's hand was slick with his seed. Bran winced as the sweet, hard pleasure rocked over him, and his lips were alive with love in the purple dusk.  _Always, Jojen, always, forever, I am yours, always..._

Like a candle snuffed, Bran's words were trapped by Jojen's strong, loving kiss.

The greendream melted like wax as the world rushed back through Bran's eyes and ears and nose, betraying him from his soft lover's grasp on the miserable beach to the lonely caress of the night in Greywater Watch. A cold ache pricked across Bran's arms and stole the wind from his lungs, begging for the tender stroke of Jojen's gentle, nimble fingers. Bran stared unseeingly, his eyes suffocated by the dark, through the gossamer netting draped over the bed. Every vein and tendon and hair called out for the close, tight warmth of the Lord of Greywater Watch, yet here lay his lover alone in the darkness. Bran wracked his clouded mind for some inkling of Jojen's whereabouts. He seemed to remember a warm tumble of arms and hands that tucked him sweetly under these silks, but faces and voices escaped him. Bran sighed. Never had he seen a day so bittersweet for his love, and now a night so lonely as he doubtless drained his sorrow as he reached the bottom of every new glass. Bran was no stranger to the pain of losing one so close.

The king moved but felt the wetness that traced from his spent cock along the sheets. He sighed, unheard, and groped blindly in the pitch black for the tiny string that ran along the wall. Somewhere the dull tinkle of the bells seeped through the stone of his floor, and the pitter-patter of a servant's feet echoed through the tight, winding stairwell.

"Your grace?" the servant asked feebly, rubbing sleep from his heavy eyes as he nodded thoughtfully to his king.

"What is your name, boy?" Bran's voice cracked in the night, watery from his restless sleep. The young servant couldn't be much older than himself in the greendream, eight years prior.

"Pelland, if it please your grace." The servant boy broke into a full bow this time, shameful for forgoing his manners.

Bran smiled in the yellow torchlight, amused at the servant's folly. "I have a mind to take a warm soak, Pelland. If you could pass the word, I would be most appreciative." The boy nodded again. "And if you could fetch someone to gather a new fire for my hearth while I enjoy my bath, that would be most wonderful. Seems mine has either gone out or I was simply too exhausted to call for one before my rest. I can't quite remember which." Bran yawned and felt a dull pain shoot through the back of his head straight through to his eye. He'd indulged himself too much, though he prayed the pains of wine would seep away in the soothing water as the cold would. The servant turned to deliver the king's orders. "Wait a moment, boy," the king warned, smiling.

 _Boy?_  Meera would whisper to him if she were here. Doubtless she'd found some young servant to warm her bedside by now, one beautiful enough to test Bran's faithfulness but smart enough not to betray her trust to the other smallfolk, lest he bring the wrath of the Nurse of the North down on himself.  _Twenty-three is barely manhood in earnest, so you've a lot of nerve to be calling him 'boy', sweet husband_. 

The boy's muddy, brown eyes were flaked with fear in the torchlight. Bran had never thought himself an intimidating kind of cripple, but he supposed any man or beast with a crown upon its head curried some fear with his subjects. "It is my royal prerogative to see these bedsheets cleaned as well, in the utmost secrecy and with the strongest of soaps. Seems my urges couldn't wait for some sweet beauty to warm my bed." He grinned at his own jape, and the servant boy's laughter bubbled quickly through his nose before slamming to a dead halt. Bran chuckled, and at a nod, the servant boy smiled at the joke, and soon was gone, bounding down the stairwell as the torchlight fizzled away and night gripped the tower once more.

Before Bran could stir himself to move, the servant boy returned, dropping his torch into the door's sconce before taking to the bedside and peeling away the silks in the dull, shifting light. He scooped his arms around the king's shoulders and beneath his knees, and clutched him close to the chest to carry. The boy's hair wasn't unlike his own, wine-red with a deep soak of soft brown. Bran tried to protest as strong, sinewed arms carried him across the room, but his mind defied him.  _A drunk cripple crashing down those thousand stairs wouldn't be a welcome sight._  

The sound of the boy's footfall on the tower stairs was soft and reassuring, and the king nearly drifted away in the boy's soft, warm strength. Bran curled his heavy head into the boy's rough, woolen bedclothes and nestled into the warmth of his chest there. He smelled the sea, the swamp, sweat and cedar. He smelled his love.

The bath chamber was alive with the tiny flames of dozens of candles, smelling of mint, pepper, maple, pine and weirwood. Like flowers the little brushes of fire bared their scents to the world, and Bran swam through their menagerie like a bee flitting through the garden. Swirls of cedar, basil and Myrish orange curled from the surface of the bathwater, and the boy let the king stand as he undressed him. Bran couldn't help but feel the boy's eyes on him as he sloughed away his smallclothes. He sighed. Had he teased this one too heavily? Limply, Bran stepped toward the bath and the servant boy helped him over its wall and into the hot, virgin waters. Bran inhaled sharply at the tiny pinpricks of heat that he could feel searing through his atrophied legs, but as he rested in the bath the warmth flooded over him with the comfort of Summer's soft fur.

In the candlelight, just off the edge of the bath, the servant boy had grown more cocksure. "Your grace, is there anything else that might tempt you?" The boy's right hand drifted to beneath his waist, and there he made a languid, lustful stroke along his tented bedclothes. Bran chuckled. He didn't quite look unlike his love, and the aroused blush that raced across the servant boy's face wasn't so unfamiliar. There lay the thin, cottony bruise of drink across the boy's face -- doubtless, he'd taken the celebrations of Jojen's confirmation to heart.

"You've got some daring, boy," Bran warned, chuckling, but the boy didn't back down, only nodded. "How old are you, fifteen?" Bran asked, cocking his head as he adjusted his seat in the steaming, fragrant water, to hide his own half-arousal. 

The boy's other stray hand loosened his belt, and his garb slipped from his shoulders and onto the cold tile. There he stood, his erection naked and proud, his muscled, lean body a picture of prime youth. "Seventeen in a moon, your grace," he whispered, slipping his feet into the steaming bath. "Once a personal servant to her grace, your lady wife." Bran blushed, but never let his feigned smile drop. He cursed his wife's loose lips, that too often sold secrets from beneath her black, curling ivy.

Bran swore every god that cursed man with that low, insatiable hunger. In the flickers of the thousand flames, the servant's shapely torso, with just the softest licks of hair growing in patches along his chest, rippled like liquid gold. The gentle curve of his face and the sly angle of his fox eyes made the longing worse, as in the dim light the image of young Jojen stared down at him. Perhaps the wrong coloring, perhaps a bit too muscled, but in the dusky darkness his lover's features melted into the servant's in his mind's eye. Bran's face remained cool as a thousand boiling thoughts burst across his head.  _Where the hell is he?_  Bran felt the urge to reach out, to touch, and he felt powerless to stop his suddenly-straying hands. The servant boy knelt down to meet them and settled into the bath, laying against him in the scented water. Bran gasped as the space between their bodies edged smaller, feeling their cocks tumble below the water's caress.

"I know of your grace's wants and needs," came the boy's seductory whisper as he dutifully sucked the ridge of Bran's sunken collarbone.  _Oh, Jojen, please..._ all he felt was his strawhaired lankness pressing ever closer and firmer. He was torn between taking the boy in hand, taking him with his cock deep inside the untouched child, and ripping him away and casting him in irons for testing his fidelity. Bran whimpered softly as he mind screamed to his unyielding legs to turn away, beat away this drink-crazed child. His hands pawed uselessly at the servant boy's chiseled chest. "The Starks are fierce warriors, never satiated on any front."

Some fire lit deep inside Bran's chest, stealing the wind from the fire in his cock. "The Starks are men of honor," he spat. Lazily the servant boy drew from his king, and only smirked in the shimmering reflections of candlelight as Bran brewed his next words. They seemed to stick and claw at his throat as though he'd tried to swallow an anthill, and the tiny monsters were tearing at his throat and whittling away the hold on his temper. "My faith to Lord Jojen might be unorthodox, but I swore to stand by him no matter what may come." Bran grasped his hands to the tub's edges and sat halfway out of the fragrant bath, edging away from the boy, though his erection still betrayed him. "I love him as much to take him as my husband, would that be law." The venom drained from his voice as the longing swelled once more, and Bran's base instincts cried out for the boy's sultry touch once more. He needed this simple release, this tight caress, this sinful, shameful lust.

The boy smirked seductively in the dancing candlelight and pierced through the stubbornness of Bran's furrowed brow. Their tawny hair brushed as he drew close enough to mix hot, panting breaths. "You swore an oath of honor, in the sight of the gods, to our Lady Meera," came his dragging, low whisper. "Why can one oath break, but not another?"

Bran's breath drew out, long, shallow and greased with horror. As their lips met, a warm, passionate tangle in the steam, as their bodies graced and arched together among the cedar, orange and basil, only one word filled every crevice of the king's stumbling mind.

 _Jojen_.

 

* * *

 Jojen

* * *

Jojen cursed himself. As much as Greywater Watch was his home, its towers overrun with moss and ivy, its walls eroded by the ceaseless, circling push of swamp and sea, he ached for the warm, weathered walls of Winterfell, the bazaar of smells and sights and tastes in the winter town, the grand, airy expanse of the castle only dwarfed by the ruins of Harrenhal. The sour warmth of wine melted the cold that the meager hearth of the Lord's bedchamber could never quite manage to bade away. The newest Lord of Greywater Watch only graced the seat of his ancestors when the ravens brought dark words with them: a death, a betrayal among the bannermen, a succession; for only the second time in the past year was he under the protection of these ancient walls, and where before he sporadically sat aside his lord father as he handed down justice, now he warmed the driftwood throne of the crannogmen.

The ache for Bran stirred Jojen to circle in the firelight once more. Had he sent his young king off to rest? The wine prickled through his memories, distorting them into a dirty, grey blur. A dozen lords' oaths of fealty to the new Master of the Marsh swam stirring in his mind. Perhaps he'd slipped away to rest then, in the Kingstower or somewhere in the Black Keep, but here the Lordstower rang hollow, save for the Lord himself. Jojen treasured the quiet peace, the crackle of wood against flame drowning out the far cry of the sea and the clicks of cricket song from the swamps. Though the sun had long slipped into night's pocket, Jojen's eyes never fell heavy across his face. He might stumble clumsily over his wayward feet as he paced in thought, but the Lord of Greywater Watch felt undeniably alive, beating away the dark reminders of the reasons for his presence like common rats, the liquor placing the club firmly in his grasp.

A quiet creak broke through the hiss of the fire, and through the narrow doorway Meera sauntered to her brother's side. Jojen glanced to her, but nodded at the soft bruise of drink that spread across her pale cheeks under the spray of her black curls. His tongue seemed as errant as his other muscles, but slowly, careful articulation came to him. "It's hard," he said flatly, his wet voice cracking and filling with gravel.

Meera smirked and wheeled away from her brother, padding over the cold, black tile that glinted fire across the black suede of her mourning dress. "So hard," she whispered, "for the boy who's always had it all." The searing sound of a long, languid sip from Meera's cup crossed the room.

Jojen pursed his lips, and then opened them to speak, swinging his head around to face her. Her sharp, green eyes, though glazed with the fog of drink, seemed to cut straight through him. Stupidly, his mouth gaped, but Jojen broke his resolve and brought his lips together again.

"You always had what you wanted, dear brother," she said, a chuckle bubbling deep in her throat. "Whether it was father, or mother or even me, nobody durst leave the little lordling, the heir to all the Neck, in want." She grasped the iron crown, glimmering with emeralds, from where it lay on the black, wooden table, and padded across to her brother. "The Lord of the Greywater," she whispered, nestling the crown among the tangles of his straw-colored hair. "The Protector of the Neck, Warrior of the Crannogmen and Master of the Marsh." Her chuckles were dry, menacing prickles. "Everything you've always wanted."

Jojen bit his lip, but spoke. "Put the wine away, Meera," he said, wrapping an arm around her as she tried to clumsily mince away. His own glass clattered to the floor, shattering over the tiles, the deep red of wine tint the black stone to a deep, bloody crimson. "I can't control the law, I--" his mind reeled "I can't control my _birthright_ ," he spat, as his sister wheeled away once more and laughed at his feeble, clumsy attempts to reign her in, sloshing through his own spill.

"You're the King's Hand, sweet brother," she whispered playfully. "You know I've done more to deserve that crown than you've managed to do stumbling around under my wing for your whole life." Her voice edged darker and sharper as the space between them closed again. "You've never given a  _fuck_  about Father, or the bannermen, at least until they put a pretty little ring of jewels around your head." Jojen's skin boiled with adrenaline, and his lips pursed with fury. Soon her black, curling ivy sifted through his straw, strangling and twisting it apart. "When the lords of Flint's Finger marched on the West Marshes, who accompanied father to squire? Who sat next to him on the driftwood throne to learn justice, while his heir held his nose stuck in a book from dawn to dusk? Who was his real, true, child, Jojen? Who helped him hunt and fish and rule while you lay jittering under your lordly silks and furs?"

The rage seeped out of Jojen's lungs, and he panted with fury while Meera spat the harshest truth in his face. "And what of Bran?" he said, voice rising sharp and cracking to pieces again. "What of Rickon and Osha and Hodor and Summer?" He held back the burning urge to punch the proud stubbornness from her drunk face, but he knew his sister would have him sobbing on the ground in half the time. "Without us, without  _me_ , the North would never be free. Bran could never warg, or greendream, or sit on the thr--"

"And without me," she yelled, the wine erasing her last inhibitions, "the two of you would be rotting in some bumfuck forest beyond the Wall." Her glass clattered to the floor to join her brother's, and she stormed from the room, slamming the narrow door behind her with a crash that stirred the hearth's fire, spraying tiny sparks out through the room.

Her footsteps grew softer and softer as she ascended through the winding labyrinth of the Lordstower to her bedchamber, but Jojen stood, proud and straight as tempered steel. His legs started toward the door as his eyes welled over, flooding his red cheeks with rivers of salt. The stairs blurred into each other, but the Hand never lost his balance. With what little grace he still had, Jojen crossed the winter town under the peaceful gaze of the stars, and pushed apart the irons that guarded the door of the Kingstower.

 

* * *

Bran

* * *

The garden of flame came to its autumn, as Bran tumbled among the lukewarm waters of the bath. Only a dozen of the tiny flames stayed alight, the rest knocked gracelessly onto the ground or else smothered by fragrant waves. Bran's eyes stretched heavy, purple crescents over his face, yet the young king could never find comfort in the waters.

He was only half-aware of footfall that echoed through the stairwell along the entrance of the bath chamber, but the sudden creak of the door shook the young king fully awake. As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, Bran's breath drew sharply.

There he stood in the doorway, his black mourning gown glinting like dull iron in the sparse candlelight, the fierce lizard-lion of his ancestors snarling from atop his mass of sandy curls. " _Bran_ ," he whispered from beneath the stone arch, "My love." Before Bran could stir, the gown had fallen away, and the iron crown placed gingerly atop its messy ruffles. He smiled to his love, but the ice of dread washed over him as the strawhaired lord stepped into the bath, curling beside him and swirling his fingers over every crevice, every curve and every scar on Bran's slender body.

In a blink Jojen was on him, rutting basely in the warm waters against the curve of his ass, his fingers tumbling through the red-brown spray of hair along Bran's stomach. Bran swallowed hard, and cursed at the devilish twinge of Jojen's teeth gracing over the blade of his shoulder, half a kiss, half a bite in desperate lust. Guilt melted like candlewax against the heat of Jojen's writhe muscle, but Bran couldn't bring himself to speak. "I love you, little king," Jojen whispered, teasing. Bran felt a soft warmth roll from Jojen's cheeks across his own. "I love you," he said again, his voice breaking into a short sob.

Without words, Bran moaned at Jojen's hand that tangled in his hair, and the guilt washed refreshed through his head. "Jojen," he whispered, unheard, goosebumps exploding over his skin. "Jojen, I--"

And then Jojen took him, pushed against the wall of the bath, sliding forth and back into the young king as his pants turned to deep, base groans and the water sloshed restlessly between them. Bran's cock grew stiff, suffocated against the smooth stone of the bath, while kisses coated his neck, his shoulders, his cheeks... the hot, close minutes blurred together as Bran flitted between guilt and passion, between euphoria and horror. "Jojen, we can't..."

But Jojen sped to a staccato pace, murmuring the same endless stream into his lover's ear. "I love you, I love you, you are forever mine, Bran, I love you..."

The blinders of liquor meant he never saw Bran's tears. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's still a lot left to get tied up here, but I just felt I had found my proper stopping point... so stay tuned for the next entry, where (hopefully) there's a resolution to all this crazy jealousy and angst.


End file.
